John Kasich: 2016’s happy warrior

In the year of the angry candidate and the even angrier voter, John Kasich stands out as the self-proclaimed “prince of light and hope.”

As Kasich instructed voters at a town hall meeting here — his second in this town, population 1,444 — “If you want to just yell and scream at the other side, you should not vote for me. … Don’t vote for me.”

Little about Kasich’s message is standard political operating procedure. He is more apt to mention God on the campaign trail than he is his Democratic opponents, much less his Republican ones.

“This is not a political speech — this is a life talk,” Kasich told workers at a warehouse in the town of Bow, observing that “the Lord has put his hand on me for some reason. But he’s got his hand on everybody in this room if you let him.” Then he wondered, “What do you think? Am I out of my mind here telling you this stuff?”

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